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Surprised? The guy once said "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are no

Surprised? The guy once said "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of 'capitalist democracy' into an oxymoron," The guy implies the world would be better off if women couldn't vote, and you're surprised people hate him?

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
Well, I for one read his statement as plain evidence that what we need to jettison is not democracy, but instead, of course, capitalism. I realize this is nowhere near his intended reading of his own statement, but if the shoe fits, wear it!
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  Being opposed to capitalism is like being opposed to evolution, hell even the Communists are not crazy enough forgo capital markets.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    sigh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_realism#Mark_Fisher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_realism#Mark_Fisher A few simple questions: * If capitalism is as inevitable and natural as evolution, why did it take until the late 18th century and require the Enclosure and Poor Laws to appear? * If capitalism is good, such that even Communists need to ape it, why does it result in massive deflationary panics which leave entire nation-sized regions stripped of their wealth and utterly impoverished? * If capitalism is useful, why does it only seem to be working for manufactured-goods exporters and bankers? Why have growth rates dropped since the Bretton-Woods system and social democracy were abolished? Why has productivity growth been so terribly low despite the computer revolution? In short: if capitalism is so great, why all the problems we see in actually-existing capitalist countries?
    - grinnbearit 12y ago
      I'll bite. Values are subjective. Resources are limited. Capitalism is one way to choose who's values are satisfied. It does this (in general) by giving points to people who satisfy other people's values and proportional to how much they satisfy them. These points can be used to satisfy their own values after and this creates a feedback loop of value satisfaction. IMO a very good thing. Of course there are problems, every system has winners and losers and thats why we have taxation and welfare, to smooth out some of the issues. (perhaps not enough but thats another debate). If you have another system in mind, I'd like you to think about who the winners and losers are and talk about the alternative system in those terms.
      - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
        Before we discuss my proposals, which will involve quite a lot of detail since I cannot resort to well-worn buzzwords, let alone strange in-group buzzwords like "values being satisfied" (I see we have a Slate Star Codex reader), I have a simple question: How can you show that the goal system you described in your post actually describes actually-existing capitalism? You have described how you imagine capitalism is supposed to function or should function. You have not described how the real-world system known as "capitalism" actually behaves. You have not made a prediction. (Further, the entire "values are subjective" premise is just plain wrong. Value is objectively psychological: different individuals have different minds, but the workings of those minds are just as amenable to objective investigation as anything else. Oh, and the agents involved are bounded-rational, and competition is not perfect, and information is nowhere near free...)
        grinnbearit 12y ago
        > Value is objectively psychological: different individuals have different minds, but the workings of those minds are just as amenable to objective investigation as anything else I agree, but if you go down that path you realise that morals are objectively psychological too and in which case why do people have different ones? are they just broken? and according to what standard? Its not that you can't predict someones morals/values from a copy of their brains, its that you can't rank them objectively, i.e. not using your own morals/values as a basis. > You have described how you imagine capitalism is supposed to function or should function. You have not described how the real-world system known as "capitalism" actually behaves. You have not made a prediction. I'm talking about capitalism as a system, its implementation has flaws and winners and losers and I think its important to fix them. But, I do think its a good system. I think it makes sense to start with an ostensibly good system than any other without very good reasons not to. > strange in-group buzzwords like "values being satisfied" chuckle why yes, I do read SSC but I picked that up from http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Young-Economist-Robert-Murphy/dp/1933550880 http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Young-Economist-Robert-Murphy/... many years before I ever heard about Scott Alexander.
  - orbifold 12y ago
    Economists like to portrait their ideologies to be similar to laws of physics or in your case biology. The truth is they don't even come remotely close to an accurate model of reality nor is anything they study inevitable, but purely a product of social conventions. That they come up with various a priori reasons why things have to be this way (right to private property etc.) is not the same as discovering the natural order of things, as is done in the natural sciences. As someone with a natural science background I find it fairly offensive to compare that culture of intellectual dishonesty and boastfulness to some of the greatest intellectual achievements in natural science.
    - happyscrappy 12y ago
      >I find it fairly offensive to compare that culture of intellectual dishonesty and boastfulness Someone will always be offended no matter what you do but the proof is in the pudding. Capital needing to flow to where it is most useful should not make you take personal offense.
      - orbifold 12y ago
        Well utility is a drastically oversimplified substitute for the extraordinarily complex processes by which capital is actually distributed, in the sense that it has the role of energy in physics but cannot be defined in a similar precise manner. Moreover capital itself has no agency (it doesn't need to do anything, compared to say electrons) and any model that describes the flow of capital doesn't have the same standing as say Maxwells equations, they aren't even phenomenological. I guess Finance is the closest thing in economics where you can come up with more or less accurate models for the prices etc. But again those are human constructs and don't have anything in common with laws of nature.
BukhariH 12y ago
I would encourage people to read the full essay he wrote (http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education...). Infact, this is the essay he was asked about in the Q&A. Thiel was talking about why libertarianism fell and big government grew in America. He pointed out the fact (Source: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/250093?sid=21105913766681&uid=4&uid=3738032&uid=2 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/250093?sid=21105913766...) that since women got the vote in America the size of the government increased and became far more interventionist - both points are against libertarianism's core principles, hence women becoming franchised was a factor in the fall of libertarianism. Like any reasonable person, Peter Thiel fully supports equal rights for women. It's a shame that people misunderstood what he was trying to say.
api 12y ago
He hadn't yet learned how to talk like a politician. That quote is out of context.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

Well, I for one read his statement as plain evidence that what we need to jettison is not democracy, but instead, of course, capitalism. I realize this is nowhere near his intended reading of his own statement, but if the shoe fits, wear it!

happyscrappy 12y ago
Being opposed to capitalism is like being opposed to evolution, hell even the Communists are not crazy enough forgo capital markets.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  sigh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_realism#Mark_Fisher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_realism#Mark_Fisher A few simple questions: * If capitalism is as inevitable and natural as evolution, why did it take until the late 18th century and require the Enclosure and Poor Laws to appear? * If capitalism is good, such that even Communists need to ape it, why does it result in massive deflationary panics which leave entire nation-sized regions stripped of their wealth and utterly impoverished? * If capitalism is useful, why does it only seem to be working for manufactured-goods exporters and bankers? Why have growth rates dropped since the Bretton-Woods system and social democracy were abolished? Why has productivity growth been so terribly low despite the computer revolution? In short: if capitalism is so great, why all the problems we see in actually-existing capitalist countries?
  - grinnbearit 12y ago
    I'll bite. Values are subjective. Resources are limited. Capitalism is one way to choose who's values are satisfied. It does this (in general) by giving points to people who satisfy other people's values and proportional to how much they satisfy them. These points can be used to satisfy their own values after and this creates a feedback loop of value satisfaction. IMO a very good thing. Of course there are problems, every system has winners and losers and thats why we have taxation and welfare, to smooth out some of the issues. (perhaps not enough but thats another debate). If you have another system in mind, I'd like you to think about who the winners and losers are and talk about the alternative system in those terms.
    - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
      Before we discuss my proposals, which will involve quite a lot of detail since I cannot resort to well-worn buzzwords, let alone strange in-group buzzwords like "values being satisfied" (I see we have a Slate Star Codex reader), I have a simple question: How can you show that the goal system you described in your post actually describes actually-existing capitalism? You have described how you imagine capitalism is supposed to function or should function. You have not described how the real-world system known as "capitalism" actually behaves. You have not made a prediction. (Further, the entire "values are subjective" premise is just plain wrong. Value is objectively psychological: different individuals have different minds, but the workings of those minds are just as amenable to objective investigation as anything else. Oh, and the agents involved are bounded-rational, and competition is not perfect, and information is nowhere near free...)
      - grinnbearit 12y ago
        > Value is objectively psychological: different individuals have different minds, but the workings of those minds are just as amenable to objective investigation as anything else I agree, but if you go down that path you realise that morals are objectively psychological too and in which case why do people have different ones? are they just broken? and according to what standard? Its not that you can't predict someones morals/values from a copy of their brains, its that you can't rank them objectively, i.e. not using your own morals/values as a basis. > You have described how you imagine capitalism is supposed to function or should function. You have not described how the real-world system known as "capitalism" actually behaves. You have not made a prediction. I'm talking about capitalism as a system, its implementation has flaws and winners and losers and I think its important to fix them. But, I do think its a good system. I think it makes sense to start with an ostensibly good system than any other without very good reasons not to. > strange in-group buzzwords like "values being satisfied" chuckle why yes, I do read SSC but I picked that up from http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Young-Economist-Robert-Murphy/dp/1933550880 http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Young-Economist-Robert-Murphy/... many years before I ever heard about Scott Alexander.
- orbifold 12y ago
  Economists like to portrait their ideologies to be similar to laws of physics or in your case biology. The truth is they don't even come remotely close to an accurate model of reality nor is anything they study inevitable, but purely a product of social conventions. That they come up with various a priori reasons why things have to be this way (right to private property etc.) is not the same as discovering the natural order of things, as is done in the natural sciences. As someone with a natural science background I find it fairly offensive to compare that culture of intellectual dishonesty and boastfulness to some of the greatest intellectual achievements in natural science.
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    >I find it fairly offensive to compare that culture of intellectual dishonesty and boastfulness Someone will always be offended no matter what you do but the proof is in the pudding. Capital needing to flow to where it is most useful should not make you take personal offense.
    - orbifold 12y ago
      Well utility is a drastically oversimplified substitute for the extraordinarily complex processes by which capital is actually distributed, in the sense that it has the role of energy in physics but cannot be defined in a similar precise manner. Moreover capital itself has no agency (it doesn't need to do anything, compared to say electrons) and any model that describes the flow of capital doesn't have the same standing as say Maxwells equations, they aren't even phenomenological. I guess Finance is the closest thing in economics where you can come up with more or less accurate models for the prices etc. But again those are human constructs and don't have anything in common with laws of nature.

BukhariH 12y ago

I would encourage people to read the full essay he wrote (http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education...). Infact, this is the essay he was asked about in the Q&A. Thiel was talking about why libertarianism fell and big government grew in America. He pointed out the fact (Source: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/250093?sid=21105913766681&uid=4&uid=3738032&uid=2 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/250093?sid=21105913766...) that since women got the vote in America the size of the government increased and became far more interventionist - both points are against libertarianism's core principles, hence women becoming franchised was a factor in the fall of libertarianism. Like any reasonable person, Peter Thiel fully supports equal rights for women. It's a shame that people misunderstood what he was trying to say.

api 12y ago

He hadn't yet learned how to talk like a politician. That quote is out of context.